DCRMS Review/report

This manual marks a huge improvement over what existed previously for catalogers of rare serials, who had to apply the transcription rules for rare books, as modified by the 4 page Appendix C of DCRB, as best they could, making ad hoc decisions for particular problems or peculiarities as they arose. As the first real manual for rare serials catalogers, the manual benefits greatly from the prior existence of DCRB and oDCRMB, and shares the virtues of the latter, including (but not limited to): the ‘grounding’ of the rules in specific sources and previous codes; the listing of explicit “objectives and principles;” the addition of rules for machine-made publications; a section on precataloging decisions; specific rules for transcribing publisher and manufacturer when both are present; the flexibility to allow for different ‘depths’ of treatment of materials; and several extremely helpful appendixes, esp. one on collection-level records.

When it deals with issues of description common to books and serials, the manual follows DCRMB very closely. However, it provides greatly expanded guidance for problems specific to serials, such as choosing the basis for the description and the chief source of information, dealing with incomplete runs, recording variations or minor changes to the title, recording numbering or issuing peculiarities or complexity, and “pilot’ issues. It also includes an appendix for cataloging individual or special issues of serials, and an appendix, with detailed examples, covering the sometimes vexing problem of “reissues.

It is probably possible to disagree with solutions chosen for particular problems, but on the whole the issues have been thoroughly hashed out, and reasonable solutions have been provided.

Contents

Introduction

VII. Acronyns

Full citations for the following publications from the list of acronyms are not included in the List of Works Cited: BDRB, DCRB, DCRM(B).

0E. Prescribed punctuation

We are no longer restricted to using typewriters, so use an em dash for a dash, not two hyphens, which have been used only as a work-around. The same applies in 0G3.5, 1B6.3, 7A4.2, 7A5.1, 7B8.2, 7B8.3, 7B19.2, Appendix H4.3, H5, Index.

My point is that using two hyphens is an implementation-based work-around based on the capabilities of typewriters and the earliest online systems. We still use it in our online catalogs, but why? Most of them can handle Unicode now, can't they? In any event, such implementation questions shouldn't be part of a standard like this, except maybe in Appendix A.

1E14.3

This seems internally contradictory. On the one hand, words are being omitted because they are less important, but on the other hand, they are being transcribed in a note if they are considered important.

2C1.1

The example seems to conflict with 1E13 and 2C2.1, where similar statements are treated as part of the statement of responsibility.

I do agree that the statement of responsibility for an edition seems to be treated differently, in that there can be no statement of responsibility without a name, whereas, for instance, "translated from the French" alone can be a statement of responsibility following the title.

4D1.4

3rd example lacks comma at beginning.

4D2.1

3rd example lacks comma at beginning.

4D5.1

The introduction states that these rules follow AACR2 as much as possible. Why not transcribe a copyright date in the publication, distribution, etc., area?

6A2.6

It would seem difficult to determine if a series statement is present in every issue. Why not use the statement found on the issue used as the basis of the description?

7B8.2

"Statement of limitation" should be defined in the glossary.

Appendix B

505 field

The text mentions ISBD structure in the contents note, but the ISBD consolidated ed. does not use dashes (or double hyphens) between titles; it uses space-semicolon-space when there are no statements of responsibility (section 7.7).